Alla Yutkina: "When you understand how difficult each step is, you rejoice in every victory"
The heroine of our current story - Alla Yutkina - is an energetic, erudite, attractive mother of two children - Timothy and Margarita. It emits a feeling of inner strength and a certain wave of optimism, which seems to be able to erase any worms of life. But, alas, in strength - and trials… For six years, Allah has been teaching his son Timothy, it would seem, such simple things: to communicate with the world and rejoice in it, eat pilaf and soup, climb the climbing wall and rollerblade. Her Timothy is autistic, and the skills that are easily given to children his age, the boy learns with great difficulty. But the more valuable are the victories achieved by him and his mother!
Strangers’ Stories: A Series of Small Victories.
At first, no one saw much trouble in the fact that Timothy was developing in a special way. It seemed to the parents: the baby will be stubborn, you will ask "clap", "sink", and he does not seem to want to. But by the age of one and a half, Tim did not respond to the name, did not understand the speech addressed to him, and Alla sounded the alarm. In the direction of a pediatrician, she examined her son for several months with a neurologist and psychiatrist, and received a verdict from them, which was scary to realize. Doctors diagnosed Timothy with autism.
"At first it was a terrible shock," Alla recalls. "I was a pregnant daughter at the time. At first you do not understand that this is forever and you rush to look for some magic pill, a magic doctor who in six months for all the money in the world will cure a child and everything will be fine. Then you understand that it is for a long time… ». Concerned about the health of her daughter, whom she carried under her heart, Alla, however, could not protect herself from the emotions that overwhelmed her: "You are immersed in information about this condition of the child - autism. You understand that it is at this age that every day is worth its weight in gold. And it is impossible to protect the child from effective classes, so I, being pregnant, traveled all day to doctors and teachers.
Over time, it became clear that autism is not a disease at all, and it is extremely dangerous to suppress it with drugs. Drug treatment is, rather, a remnant of Soviet medicine, Alla realized, so it is possible and necessary to treat, for example, epileptic disorders of autistic children. A physically healthy child who, due to his mental state, feels isolated from the world, does not need acupuncture or unsafe polarization of the brain, but delicate and wise training.
But before such an understanding came, Alla was desperately looking for effective methods and stuffing the first bumps. Now she openly shares her experience with all mothers of autistic children who fervently believe in miraculous drugs and diets. "There is a theory," says Alla, "that a casein-free and gluten-free diet should be used to alleviate the symptoms of autism." We kept Timothy on this diet for a year, up to three years. It was said that she would help the child, but instead of improving, we had an eating disorder. Before that, the son ate everything he wanted, but now he has deliberately given up most dishes and narrowed his diet to just three foods.
Fortunately, Alla soon realized that the child should not be treated, but socialized, and the sooner you apply pedagogical techniques - the more effective the result. He and Timothy took their first successful steps at the age of two, and at the age of four they began to apply a technique that helped the boy develop speech.
Alla recalls: “For the first few months, and for some, perhaps even years, depression and negative feelings overwhelm. But as soon as you diagnose a child and understand that life is different, it is yours and the child is yours, you start thinking about how to build this life without sitting under a blanket at home, but so that it is useful and good for the child and all family.
Alla graduated from the correspondence department of correctional pedagogy at the University. M. Dragomanova, where many of the students turned out to be the same as her, mothers of children with various mental disorders. But the knowledge gained did little to help, and Alla began to look for advanced techniques used in the United States, Canada and Europe, and focused on the extraordinarily effective method of ABA, or applied analysis of behavior. There are almost no specialists in this field of autism correction in Ukraine, but she was lucky to meet the best of them. The results of the use of AVA in the education of the child were not just surprising, literally within two months the parents saw that Timothy could be taught everything. It was not scary, not scary for the child and his future, not scary for the daily life of the family.
Seeking to master this analysis and other progressive methods of raising an autistic child, Alla graduated from American thematic courses online, took courses on inclusion in Ukraine. The fact that my mother spent so much energy on her studies paid off a hundredfold when Timofey began to talk, communicate with children, and went to kindergarten.
"What did not bring joy to the child is now associated with positive emotions," says Alla.
AVA changes the model of relations with him, it turned out, everything is simple: the method is based on the belief that the child can do anything if he is encouraged by a yummy or glowing toy or cartoon, something that brings pleasure to the child. “You can learn to eat pilaf, a small spoon - for a large bar of chocolate. And then learn to eat a portion of pilaf for a slice of chocolate. Also with mathematics, when a child with medals, badges and more importantly - with pleasure - completes tasks. There are still many simple and obvious secrets in ABA that are not usually used in standard pedagogy. For example, a whole system of tips and their types. Hints are usually considered to be a bad thing. Quite the opposite. The adult makes a hint in time, receives from the child the correct answer or the necessary action, and as a result - receives the successful child, who performs tasks with pleasure and encouragement for correct answers. Gradually the level of prompts decreases, they change, the child begins to respond without prompts. Agree, the pleasure of the learning process, when the child is always successful and always receives incentives, is much greater than in standard methods. And there are a lot of such subtleties in AVA. AVA is a whole science and it is taken as a basis for teaching and correcting the behavior of children with autism in the United States. Alla hopes that one day this will become the norm. After all, the earlier you start training, the greater the probability of maximum correction of the child. By the way, the last Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded for behavioral economics. the child begins to respond without prompting. Agree, the pleasure of the learning process, when the child is always successful and always receives incentives, is much greater than in standard methods. And there are a lot of such subtleties in AVA. AVA is a whole science and it is taken as a basis for teaching and correcting the behavior of children with autism in the United States. Alla hopes that one day this will become the norm. After all, the earlier you start training, the greater the probability of maximum correction of the child. By the way, the last Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded for behavioral economics. the child begins to respond without prompting. Agree, the pleasure of the learning process, when the child is always successful and always receives incentives, is much greater than in standard methods. And there are a lot of such subtleties in AVA. AVA is a whole science and it is taken as a basis for teaching and correcting the behavior of children with autism in the United States. Alla hopes that one day this will become the norm. After all, the earlier you start training, the greater the probability of maximum correction of the child. By the way, the last Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded for behavioral economics. AVA is a whole science and it is taken as a basis for teaching and correcting the behavior of children with autism in the United States. Alla hopes that one day this will become the norm. After all, the earlier you start training, the greater the probability of maximum correction of the child. By the way, the last Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded for behavioral economics. AVA is a whole science and it is taken as a basis for teaching and correcting the behavior of children with autism in the United States. Alla hopes that one day this will become the norm. After all, the earlier you start training, the greater the probability of maximum correction of the child. By the way, the last Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded for behavioral economics.
Now Timofey spends the first half of the day in kindergarten, at first it was a speech therapy group, and now it is inclusive. And here, too, there are features. With the child in kindergarten, and then in school will be the child’s assistant, or tutor, until he himself can not be completely successful in the children’s team. The state pays for the services of a teacher’s assistant in an inclusive kindergarten group and in an inclusive classroom, but the child’s assistant services are paid for by the parents themselves.
The second half of the day is painted in minutes: Timofey is engaged individually with teachers, speech therapists, learns to play the piano and synthesizer, is engaged in sports sections. He loves children’s football, swimming, rollerblading. He learned to read on his own, learned the English alphabet and many English words, can add and subtract, likes to play board games.
- We have a certain way of life: the eldest child has his own. The younger one has her own. No one comforts anyone, we just live, we don’t suffer, and Timothy is definitely not "a person with autism." He works hard, ten times more than a normal child. At first it was difficult for us to go to parks and entertainment centers, but when I internally accepted his condition, then people began to treat us differently, they stopped squinting at me. Apparently, society is changing, becoming more humane.
Alla says that America and Israel have estimated that autism is one of the most expensive diseases, but if you invest in young children, the state will be able to avoid the huge costs of providing helpless adults with disabilities. In our country, the family is forced to devote all its time, without a trace, to the rehabilitation of a sick child. In the United States and Israel, the upbringing of these children is built in such a way that the family continues to live a normal life. In the morning, the child can be picked up by a taxi, taken to a development center or kindergarten, and returned at four o’clock in the afternoon. In addition, the state pays for babysitting hours several times a week so that parents can stay together without their children. Parents do not take time off from work, the child is properly rehabilitated. And here everything is difficult: you are not sure that the child will not spend time in vain in the rehabilitation center.
Timothy grows up to be a kind, friendly child, breaking down far-fetched stereotypes that children with autism do not show warm feelings. He loves to hug and kiss dad, mom and sister, he likes to share toys and hear from children gratitude for his kindness. He has developed speech, but, unfortunately, he can not yet coherently tell about what happened during the day, will not be able to complain about the offender if someone offends him. Like all children with autism, he does not understand ambiguous phrases. Alla says that aggression, which is also attributed to autistic children, is not really a character trait, but only a forced reaction of the child. It is difficult for an autistic person to express his emotions, he does not know how to say that something is wrong with him, or he cannot, for example, perform a task, and doctors, instead,
Alla spends more and more time outside the family, running a family business and overseeing the Children’s Inclusive Zone at Courage Bazaar, which is directly linked to children, where they can enjoy entertainment regardless of their medical record. Disneyland, created as part of the Courage Bazaar, can be played by visually impaired and hearing-impaired children, children with Down syndrome and children with autism.
"I had a little patience, but I had enough strength," says Alla. - When you understand how difficult each step is, you rejoice in every victory. At the request of "kiss mom" - the child came and kissed, and you stop paying attention to all the hustle and bustle around, the political difficulties in the country, exchange rates, bad weather, on which people spend their energy, angry and upset. And you have more time and energy left for your children and their victories. Let even tiny victories, because sometimes a second response from the child is enough to recharge your batteries for the week ahead!
The main thing for parents of children with special needs - says Alla - is not to give up, raising and educating children with autism is a lot of work, daily work, but the result is amazing!
Photo by Anna Zagorskaya
Strangers’ Stories: A Series of Small Victories.
At first, no one saw much trouble in the fact that Timothy was developing in a special way. It seemed to the parents: the baby will be stubborn, you will ask "clap", "sink", and he does not seem to want to. But by the age of one and a half, Tim did not respond to the name, did not understand the speech addressed to him, and Alla sounded the alarm. In the direction of a pediatrician, she examined her son for several months with a neurologist and psychiatrist, and received a verdict from them, which was scary to realize. Doctors diagnosed Timothy with autism.
"At first it was a terrible shock," Alla recalls. "I was a pregnant daughter at the time. At first you do not understand that this is forever and you rush to look for some magic pill, a magic doctor who in six months for all the money in the world will cure a child and everything will be fine. Then you understand that it is for a long time… ». Concerned about the health of her daughter, whom she carried under her heart, Alla, however, could not protect herself from the emotions that overwhelmed her: "You are immersed in information about this condition of the child - autism. You understand that it is at this age that every day is worth its weight in gold. And it is impossible to protect the child from effective classes, so I, being pregnant, traveled all day to doctors and teachers.
Over time, it became clear that autism is not a disease at all, and it is extremely dangerous to suppress it with drugs. Drug treatment is, rather, a remnant of Soviet medicine, Alla realized, so it is possible and necessary to treat, for example, epileptic disorders of autistic children. A physically healthy child who, due to his mental state, feels isolated from the world, does not need acupuncture or unsafe polarization of the brain, but delicate and wise training.
But before such an understanding came, Alla was desperately looking for effective methods and stuffing the first bumps. Now she openly shares her experience with all mothers of autistic children who fervently believe in miraculous drugs and diets. "There is a theory," says Alla, "that a casein-free and gluten-free diet should be used to alleviate the symptoms of autism." We kept Timothy on this diet for a year, up to three years. It was said that she would help the child, but instead of improving, we had an eating disorder. Before that, the son ate everything he wanted, but now he has deliberately given up most dishes and narrowed his diet to just three foods.
Fortunately, Alla soon realized that the child should not be treated, but socialized, and the sooner you apply pedagogical techniques - the more effective the result. He and Timothy took their first successful steps at the age of two, and at the age of four they began to apply a technique that helped the boy develop speech.
Alla recalls: “For the first few months, and for some, perhaps even years, depression and negative feelings overwhelm. But as soon as you diagnose a child and understand that life is different, it is yours and the child is yours, you start thinking about how to build this life without sitting under a blanket at home, but so that it is useful and good for the child and all family.
Alla graduated from the correspondence department of correctional pedagogy at the University. M. Dragomanova, where many of the students turned out to be the same as her, mothers of children with various mental disorders. But the knowledge gained did little to help, and Alla began to look for advanced techniques used in the United States, Canada and Europe, and focused on the extraordinarily effective method of ABA, or applied analysis of behavior. There are almost no specialists in this field of autism correction in Ukraine, but she was lucky to meet the best of them. The results of the use of AVA in the education of the child were not just surprising, literally within two months the parents saw that Timothy could be taught everything. It was not scary, not scary for the child and his future, not scary for the daily life of the family.
Seeking to master this analysis and other progressive methods of raising an autistic child, Alla graduated from American thematic courses online, took courses on inclusion in Ukraine. The fact that my mother spent so much energy on her studies paid off a hundredfold when Timofey began to talk, communicate with children, and went to kindergarten.
"What did not bring joy to the child is now associated with positive emotions," says Alla.
AVA changes the model of relations with him, it turned out, everything is simple: the method is based on the belief that the child can do anything if he is encouraged by a yummy or glowing toy or cartoon, something that brings pleasure to the child. “You can learn to eat pilaf, a small spoon - for a large bar of chocolate. And then learn to eat a portion of pilaf for a slice of chocolate. Also with mathematics, when a child with medals, badges and more importantly - with pleasure - completes tasks. There are still many simple and obvious secrets in ABA that are not usually used in standard pedagogy. For example, a whole system of tips and their types. Hints are usually considered to be a bad thing. Quite the opposite. The adult makes a hint in time, receives from the child the correct answer or the necessary action, and as a result - receives the successful child, who performs tasks with pleasure and encouragement for correct answers. Gradually the level of prompts decreases, they change, the child begins to respond without prompts. Agree, the pleasure of the learning process, when the child is always successful and always receives incentives, is much greater than in standard methods. And there are a lot of such subtleties in AVA. AVA is a whole science and it is taken as a basis for teaching and correcting the behavior of children with autism in the United States. Alla hopes that one day this will become the norm. After all, the earlier you start training, the greater the probability of maximum correction of the child. By the way, the last Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded for behavioral economics. the child begins to respond without prompting. Agree, the pleasure of the learning process, when the child is always successful and always receives incentives, is much greater than in standard methods. And there are a lot of such subtleties in AVA. AVA is a whole science and it is taken as a basis for teaching and correcting the behavior of children with autism in the United States. Alla hopes that one day this will become the norm. After all, the earlier you start training, the greater the probability of maximum correction of the child. By the way, the last Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded for behavioral economics. the child begins to respond without prompting. Agree, the pleasure of the learning process, when the child is always successful and always receives incentives, is much greater than in standard methods. And there are a lot of such subtleties in AVA. AVA is a whole science and it is taken as a basis for teaching and correcting the behavior of children with autism in the United States. Alla hopes that one day this will become the norm. After all, the earlier you start training, the greater the probability of maximum correction of the child. By the way, the last Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded for behavioral economics. AVA is a whole science and it is taken as a basis for teaching and correcting the behavior of children with autism in the United States. Alla hopes that one day this will become the norm. After all, the earlier you start training, the greater the probability of maximum correction of the child. By the way, the last Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded for behavioral economics. AVA is a whole science and it is taken as a basis for teaching and correcting the behavior of children with autism in the United States. Alla hopes that one day this will become the norm. After all, the earlier you start training, the greater the probability of maximum correction of the child. By the way, the last Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded for behavioral economics.
Now Timofey spends the first half of the day in kindergarten, at first it was a speech therapy group, and now it is inclusive. And here, too, there are features. With the child in kindergarten, and then in school will be the child’s assistant, or tutor, until he himself can not be completely successful in the children’s team. The state pays for the services of a teacher’s assistant in an inclusive kindergarten group and in an inclusive classroom, but the child’s assistant services are paid for by the parents themselves.
The second half of the day is painted in minutes: Timofey is engaged individually with teachers, speech therapists, learns to play the piano and synthesizer, is engaged in sports sections. He loves children’s football, swimming, rollerblading. He learned to read on his own, learned the English alphabet and many English words, can add and subtract, likes to play board games.
- We have a certain way of life: the eldest child has his own. The younger one has her own. No one comforts anyone, we just live, we don’t suffer, and Timothy is definitely not "a person with autism." He works hard, ten times more than a normal child. At first it was difficult for us to go to parks and entertainment centers, but when I internally accepted his condition, then people began to treat us differently, they stopped squinting at me. Apparently, society is changing, becoming more humane.
Alla says that America and Israel have estimated that autism is one of the most expensive diseases, but if you invest in young children, the state will be able to avoid the huge costs of providing helpless adults with disabilities. In our country, the family is forced to devote all its time, without a trace, to the rehabilitation of a sick child. In the United States and Israel, the upbringing of these children is built in such a way that the family continues to live a normal life. In the morning, the child can be picked up by a taxi, taken to a development center or kindergarten, and returned at four o’clock in the afternoon. In addition, the state pays for babysitting hours several times a week so that parents can stay together without their children. Parents do not take time off from work, the child is properly rehabilitated. And here everything is difficult: you are not sure that the child will not spend time in vain in the rehabilitation center.
Timothy grows up to be a kind, friendly child, breaking down far-fetched stereotypes that children with autism do not show warm feelings. He loves to hug and kiss dad, mom and sister, he likes to share toys and hear from children gratitude for his kindness. He has developed speech, but, unfortunately, he can not yet coherently tell about what happened during the day, will not be able to complain about the offender if someone offends him. Like all children with autism, he does not understand ambiguous phrases. Alla says that aggression, which is also attributed to autistic children, is not really a character trait, but only a forced reaction of the child. It is difficult for an autistic person to express his emotions, he does not know how to say that something is wrong with him, or he cannot, for example, perform a task, and doctors, instead,
Alla spends more and more time outside the family, running a family business and overseeing the Children’s Inclusive Zone at Courage Bazaar, which is directly linked to children, where they can enjoy entertainment regardless of their medical record. Disneyland, created as part of the Courage Bazaar, can be played by visually impaired and hearing-impaired children, children with Down syndrome and children with autism.
"I had a little patience, but I had enough strength," says Alla. - When you understand how difficult each step is, you rejoice in every victory. At the request of "kiss mom" - the child came and kissed, and you stop paying attention to all the hustle and bustle around, the political difficulties in the country, exchange rates, bad weather, on which people spend their energy, angry and upset. And you have more time and energy left for your children and their victories. Let even tiny victories, because sometimes a second response from the child is enough to recharge your batteries for the week ahead!
The main thing for parents of children with special needs - says Alla - is not to give up, raising and educating children with autism is a lot of work, daily work, but the result is amazing!
Photo by Anna Zagorskaya